Crystalline
by Asterie-Smiles
Summary: Lust is a most beautiful disease.


**Crystalline**

**by S_Star**

**Disclaimer: : **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.****

**Rating: **PG-13****

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco****

Summary: Lust is a most beautiful disease. 

**AN: **For Dea Liberty, as an anti-stress fic, and it doubles up as a b-day gift for ElectricAndroid (because it was written when I couldn't get any ideas for your 2 fics!) ^_^ Thanks to Dea and smashingsugar for their betas and their lovely comments!

For everyone else, this is random twistedness from my mind that was written in 10 minutes in ICT class.  Be afraid.  Be VERY afraid...

**Crystalline**

In winter, my perceptions of everything change.

It's just like being in the dark: every sound is amplified _(his footsteps through the snow to me seem to echo for a mile)_; every moment lasts an eternity _(our mingling breaths seem to hover in the air before dissipating into a thousand crystal shards); and every tiny contact is so much hotter _(even a brush of his hand against mine is like a searing burn)_._

It's delirium.

The world is so much more real somehow _(between us, how could it ever be real?), yet when you reach out to the sensations, they disappear __(his footprints, his breath, his soft, warm skin); leaving me empty and wanting to sob into my pillow._

Lust is a most beautiful disease, and his touch is like fever to me.

****

**_~_**

****

Insanity breeds within hard, stone walls, and the endless whiteness of the ground is just as hopeless, with the trees on the horizon a distant dream _(who needs dreams when I have him?)_. I could lie forever in the dark and not know when the sun will rise or whether the snow's covered our tracks yet again, and I don't think I'd care as long as he was still pressed up against me _(everything, he means everything, and I don't understand why I want to cry)._

I don't want to eat or sleep or do anything; I just want this, because for an eternity of moments I can stop being cold _(only he would be able to burn up ice)_ and feel scorched by the sun I blotted out.

I will need him as long as the snow still falls.

****

**_~_**

I never thought that it could be like this, like dying.  The moans and writhes and ecstatic cries are my death throes, and I give my life to him when I come _(he kisses like a Dementor would; steals my soul with no regret)._

A mercy killing?  I don't know, but every time I die and am resurrected, he's there _(the Boy Who Lived spreading his magic to the likes of me?)_; and he smiles tiredly and traces intricate patterns on my skin just because he knows the branding makes me shiver.

I don't know whether I freeze him when I trace kisses across his chest _(he says I'm hot, but I know that's not what he means)_, and I don't think he cries when he walks away as I do when I close the door _(even my own tears feel chilled; he sucks all heat from the room when he leaves)._

There's no potion that can stop this (save the draught of living death), and in moments like this one I can't wait for the frost on the ground to thaw.

****

**_~_**

There's no ice on the windowpanes the day the holidays end _(we couldn't carry on after this moment, anyway)_, and I open the curtains to be greeted with the shining sun, thankfully as cold as ever on my bare arms.

He will be with his friends and I with mine. I'll be able to breathe again _(people recover from diseases, and they don't necessarily leave scars)_, and this thing will be what it was from the start: a dream, shrouded in the snow, something that always had to be for some reason or another.

Ice thaws, yet we remain frozen in time; a winter's tale immortalised by the frost on our hearts.

****

**_~_**

But then, as I finally rouse myself and walk out to greet my returning Slytherins _(housemates, kindred: nothing like he is to me – he is as no one else can be)_, he is standing in the Entrance Hall, and for a second I forget that my recovery has made me immune to this and relapse into madness as I catch his eye.

He smiles _(just smiles at my affliction; all he's done since the first flakes fell), and reaches for my hand, and flames shoot through my skin and soul: the crisis of my sickness, for better or for worse._

We are not an eternity of winter: some plants are sprouting green already, their magic thriving on the thaw.

No, because we're both still here, standing and burning in the sun; and my heart melts into his arms. We have to be forever, now: there is nothing else. 

**~fin~**


End file.
